On the visit
The cab driver was sitting at table and was just about to start on his lunch when the door opened and in walked Melancholy. She threw her arms round his neck.„ "I've been looking for you everywhere, at home, in the streets, in the subway... I was even running round the shops, and all the while you were sitting here!"
She smiled and kissed his face and his bald spot. He responded with distaste, trying to wriggle out of her unwanted embrace. "You didn't endure too long without my company."
But tears of joy were rolling down her cheeks. "All morning I've felt that nature is pregnant with a kind of foreboding. It's as if the ground under my feet wants to run away, and when I look up at the sky the clouds seem to be gathering for an assault...shadowy bushes reeked with darkness, and the daylight fell on my face, half-hearted, just for form's sake.... Die, whispered branches heavy with leaves, die, wailed a sky pregnant with dark clouds, die, called the sun sailing the sky."
He has stuck his fingers in his ears, no longer able to bear her laments. She sits on his lap and winds her long cold hair around him. She has changed a little since her last visit. Now she looks more mature and behaves with more confidence. He also notices that she has got herself a new pair of shoes.
He manages to shake her off and runs out of the room, slamming the door behind him, locking it. He relaxes a little. He goes out into the streets, just be among people. He meets their stares and sees that they are turning away from him, oddly, as something written in his face that they knew well and don't want to see.